Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Mommy-Blogging Bait

I'm not a mommy blogger and don't consume beauty products other than soap and toothpaste, but as a former denizen of the custom-publishing world, this story in Ad Age caught my eye... "P&G to Launch Custom Beauty Magazine Rouge in U.S.: Package Goods Giant Plans to Build Database by Relying on Mommy Bloggers to Spread the Word." The scale of the project is pretty astounding for a mailed piece:
Procter & Gamble Co. is enlisting help from mommy bloggers as it makes over its Canadian custom-published quarterly Rouge for a full-scale U.S. launch expected to reach 11 million households in both countries by next year....
...The appeal driving mentions of Rouge among bloggers is pretty simple: It's available at the internet's favorite price (free) and comes loaded with coupons, which happen to drive much of the routine chatter regarding package-goods brands in social media.

I do wonder if the mommy bloggers will get behind the cause without a quid pro quo; maybe the bad economy is what makes coupons an attractive ploy. Even without knowing the cost per unit, I'm inclined to think that P&G will eventually kill the physical magazine and focus on the web site after a few issues (i.e., once they've captured the names). Then again, a custom publication isn't at the mercy of the horrific ad sales environment, and with publications going out of business, it may be a buyer's market in the print biz.

Anyway, they got their links and couple of minutes of free press out of me, so I guess I'm an honorary mommy blogger after all...

6 comments:

  1. Well timed post--I got "Rouge" in my mail today and wondered what was up with a P&G custom pub. You saved me a Google search! Apparently I hit some demographic target of theirs, though I remain blog-less. Or blog-free.

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  2. I bloged last week about the horrid goo-goo writing in some of those Mommy-centred magazines. I hope Rogue has a little more content--and charisma.

    And being printer-less at home, those coupons are pretty much useless to me, so the magazine might appeal a little more...

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  3. @Steph--that's bizarre timing, eh? If you have further comments on the quality of it, I'm all ears.

    @Teenie, just wait till li'l Bump gets to be 5 years old. Trust me, you'll not only need a printer, you'll need to buy ink by the barrel.

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  4. Jake, I haven't read it yet, though it looked attractive enough that I didn't through it away. Then again, that may say more about my interest in custom publishing than its appeal. I'll let you know what I think.

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  5. Maybe the moral is: With newspapers going out of business left and right, people need to get their coupons from somewhere. And coupons are still hard to manage on the web.

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  6. Jake,
    Another great Blog entry; thanks.
    Regards,
    Your LinkedIn friend

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